Chris MacDonald in a totally successful effort to keep my off balance has a new post on June 6th. Entitled Galarraga’s Corvette, MacDonald while admitting that everyone is entitled to an opinion points out that even though tax payer dollars are involved in the company’s continued operation that doesn’t mean every corporate action should be second guessed. He says managers are there to manage. I doubt that Chris MacDonald will be very surprised (or bothered) that I don’t always agree with him but he’s dead on this time. Nit picking day to day decisions is a waste of everybody’s time and the giveaway was a shrewd PR move. jp

Dani Rodrik writing in Project Syndicate, A World of Ideas, argues that the nation-state, globalization and democracy are all incompatible with each other and that at the most we can only have two of the three. It’s a thought provoking argument.

Gael O’Brien writing on her blog, The Week in Ethics, discusses the message of John Wooden. During his lifetime, Wooden created a “pyramid of success” comprised of fifteen elements. (The diagram is included in the article.)

Michael Hiltzik writing on the Los Angeles Times business page discusses online privacy. He is a champion of preserving the rights of the individual and when he talks people should listen. This is an issue of considerable importance to me.

Marian Wang writing in ProPublicareports that illnesses reported by the clean up workers on the gulf coast are caused by the oil and not by the host of other possibilities the oil company or the government will cook up.

Karl Stephan writing on his blog, Engineering Ethics Blog, discusses the flap over facebook and privacy. The article is far more philosophical than you world expect from an engineering blog. He refers to the phrase, digital suicide, which is so mind grabbing and delicious I can barely wait until Monday to try it out on the poor college freshman in Business Law I.

Timothy Egan writing an opinion piece in the New York Times say that the “millennials” should save us. He might be right. As a 53 year old, I find my generation disappointing.
(I was going to link to an article by The Ethicist, Randy Cohen, but he chose to write about a woman who was 36 but wondered if maybe she should falsify her age on her online dating profile as 34, so you’re getting Timothy Egan.)

I just found a web site called Principled Profit, created by Shel Horowitz. His latest blog entry recommends the Department of Justice get ready for criminal investigation into the British Petroleum catastrophe. One of his subtitles is “award winning blogger.” I can’t claim that one. Maybe someday. (One of the guys who does good work in the Business Ethics field linked to me on his blog just a couple of days ago, so I am moving up in the world!)

It is obvious that British Petroleum and the Obama White House are choking off news coverage of the oil spill disaster. This has so far served to dampen the rage and concern over the catastrophe. Both the White House and BP benefits by BP retaining control of the spill. The government does not want control of a sticky and difficult to manage situation as well as the multi-billion dollar cost of dealing with it. BP benefits by avoiding government oversight of its actions in dealing with the spill and limiting its financial liability. Of course, the nation does not benefit from letting this disaster continue supervised only by those responsible for the disaster in the first place. I think in years to come this will be used in textbooks as a classic case of government failure both before and after the disaster.

Student Loan Debt, A Crisis?

At the time I read his musing there were more than forty comments. You should give those a look, very perceptive comments, not what I find on many web sites. (I am most fortunate with the comments on mine.)

I am less than impressed by the student loan system in the United States.

(I was going to write this great big article talking about all the problems and incredible stupidity in paying for education this way and then, I thought about it. We can’t stop banks from gambling on $600,000,000,000 of derivatives. [World GNP is about 60 trillion] They can destroy our way of life, our entire economy, and the rest of the worlds leaving only subsistence farming. We can’t do that. What chance is there to protect students just out of high school from banking predators? There isn’t any. They are sheep. They live only to be sheared. They have no protectors, no legislators, no federal agency, and no public concern. What point is there is me telling you how foolish this is? I can’t think of any.)
jp